Name: Harvey's, or Camp Vinegar
Ingredients: 1 clove garlic, minced; 6 anchovies, chopped; ¼ ounce cayenne pepper; 3 tablespoons Indian soy sauce; 3 tablespoons mushroom or walnut ketchup; 1 quart best vinegar

Why it works: Clove and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 17,451 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Harvey's, or Camp Vinegar

Ingredients

Directions

Combine

Mince the garlic very finely.
Add the chopped anchovies, cayenne, soy sauce, and ketchup to the vinegar.

Steep and bottle

Let the mixture soak for about a month, shaking it frequently.
Strain through muslin and bottle for use.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together17,451 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).
Garlic + mushroomtop 6% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,700 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Garlic + peppertop 8% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,090 recipes

Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).
Clove + garlictop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together11,368 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).
Clove + mushroomtop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,663 recipes

Shared aroma: alpha-pinene (pine, turpentine).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Vinegar: Provides sharp acidity and extracts flavour from the other ingredients over time.
Anchovies: Dissolve during soaking, adding deep savoury, umami flavour.
Cayenne pepper: Supplies heat that infuses gradually into the vinegar.
Soy sauce: Adds salty, savoury depth that rounds out the sourness.
Mushroom or walnut ketchup: Contributes concentrated savoury, umami notes to the liquid.
Garlic: Adds pungent aroma that mellows and infuses during the soak.

The step that matters

Soaking for about a month. Flavours from the anchovies, garlic and cayenne extract slowly into the acidic vinegar. Frequent shaking keeps the solids in contact with the liquid, so straining too early leaves the flavour weak and uneven.

Swap the clove

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (garlic, pepper, sauce, mushroom, vinegar):

Thymefits better
Tarragonfits better
Parsleyfits better
Clovethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against garlic, pepper, sauce, mushroom, vinegar. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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Harvey's, or Camp Vinegar